This is a commision post written in collaboration with Lionshome.
I love encouraging my girls to be creative. F is almost 5 and loves drawing, play dough, stickers, cutting and sticking. E is 21 months and loves drawing already. We have a large and growing collection of art and craft materials and we do lots of creative activities. I often get asked where we do all our activities and how I store our art supplies. So today I’m going to show you and give you tips to help you with creating an art space for kids. It would be lovely to have a dedicated art space in a playroom for example but we don’t. Instead, all our art and sensory play happen in the kitchen. Mostly on the kitchen table. Creating at the kitchen table means the girls are close by and occupied whilst I’m cooking. We have good natural light here and I don’t worry about the mess as the table and floor are easy to clean.
This post contains affiliate links. If you purchase through them I may make a small comission, this does not affect the price you pay. Our current kitchen table has served us well over the years. It’s probably about time we started looking for a new dining table and I’ve spotted some that would be perfect for us on Lionshome. For us, a new table needs to be big enough for us all to sit around to eat, craft or play board games. It needs to be easy to clean too. Creativity can get messy but then so can mealtimes with young children anyway. This table looks perfect for our needs.
Most of our craft supplies are stored on a set of shelves near the table but out of reach of my youngest. I use a mixture of jars, plastic beakers, baskets and boxes for storing our art materials. Recently I put together a box of crafting supplies that I leave on the kitchen table and I rotate the contents so that there’s always something new to explore.
I also think it is important to have somewhere to display your child’s artwork. We use the back of the garage door and rotate the artwork as they produce more. We also have a blackboard door in the kitchen too that the kids love to draw on too.
If you’ve got lots of tiny wax crayons, you might find this useful – How To Make Your Own Crayons
My top tips for creating an art space for kids:
- If your kids are old enough, make all their art supplies accessible. My toddler is far too young so a lot of supplies like glue and paint are kept out of reach. For young children having fewer items available also prevents them from getting overwhelmed. Rotate frequently and offer them new materials to try.
- Make the most of the space you have. Have you got the room for a kids art easel or desk in a conservatory, kitchen or playroom? If not use your kitchen table like us.
- Recycle jars for storing pens, scissors and paint brushes. Baskets are useful for stamps, play dough tools etc. Make your art space visually appealing to kids.
- Trays are great for making clean up easy but also for saving a project so it can be moved from the kitchen table for meal times and brought back when your child wants to continue the activity. Trays are particularly good for play dough.
- Know which art supplies it’s ok to buy cheap and which it’s better to pay a little bit more for. For example, I always buy washable pens and paints. They may cost a little more but it saves a lot of stress. Also, I’ve found that cheap glue sticks never work well.
- Set some ground rules. My eldest, for example, knows that she is only to use messy resources like felt tip pens, paints and play dough on the kitchen table.
So now you’ve set up an art space for your kids, here is some inspiration for activities:
Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Lionshome. However, all thought and opinions are my own.
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Oh I love this idea – I am going to do this for my little ones xx
My kids would have a field day at yours! Look at all that craft stuff! I love your ideas x
Love this idea I just need the space to do it! Thank you for linking up with #TacticalTuesdays
Great ideas here! We have a space in the playroom for arts and crafts, but I need to work on keeping it tidy… my little girl uses it all the time, which is great, but never puts anything away!
I’d love a playroom and a dedicated craft space.
Love it! So important to encourage creativity I feel. <3
Couldn’t agree more especially as less and less creativity happens in schools
Our table is a bit of an everything table too. We have a big basket of craft supplies that is always out and the bigger two help themselves to it. It’s great to encourage creativity
I couldn’t agree more. Sounds like we have a very similar parenting style.
This is such a great idea and certainly something I would love to create in my own home.
I hope this post helps you.
This is such a good idea, all our art stuff is shut away but I’d love to have it more accessible for the kids xx
I can’t wait to have ours more accessible once my toddler is older. I love letting them create.
Great tips. We are always doing arts and crafts at home so have a great workstation!
It’s great to let kids get creative.
Lovely ideas and I love your port hole window!
Thank you.
Some great ideas! I think it’s so important that children have a space where they are able to express their creativity.
Me too. I love watching them create.
Love this! My kids are pretty creative too and love art. We would love a dedicated space, but like you we use the kitchen as it’s the only space we have big enough to get messy with our art. Great tips here!
Thank you. I knew I wouldn’t be alone in using the kitchen table but dreaming of more space.
These are great ideas, my daughter loves the space we have created for her. She knows it’s her own space and she can make a mess there and I love that she has a bit of freedom.
I wish we had room for something like that.
Great ideas! We have a similar table in our kitchen and my four year old also has a little table of his own, perfect for arty creations 🙂
I wish we had room for a little toddler table. My youngest would love that.
We don’t have an art space at home which is sad because my son loves getting creative. Going to try this xx
Great ideas here- I love the sharpies in jam jars- really easy to see where everything is as well as get it all out for creative play. Thank you for linking up with #tacticaltuesdays
I thought that I would hate crafts but seeing how much my daughter loves them makes me a lot more enthusiastic! I think you sound like such a lovely mum, putting all this together for them 🙂
I love the creativity.Its amazing
Some great ideas! As you can imagine, we do a lot of creating as my kids test all my ideas for my craft and party boxes! I keep all my work art equipment in transparent rainbow coloured drawers from the Really Useful Box company. They’re great as you can just about see what’s inside them and they’re really bright and colourful. They also sell mini draws which are great for sequins, googly eyes etc and little hands can open the boxes easily.
I like the idea of having a rotating selection of art supplies readily available for kids to create with. I sometimes setup invitations to create, whilst the kids are at school/nursery which is a similar idea. #bloggerpinparty
That’s a nice space you’ve got there, and great to have shelves for materials as well as an area for displaying artworks on in the same zone. We’re still on the hunt for a new dining table, which will also be for crafts, playdough, studying at etc. ?x #bloggerpinparty
Absolutely love the way in which you have set up your art space. We don’t have space for an easel either. #bloggerpinparty